Dragon Age: Cataclysm
by SoulGamesInc
Summary: The Wardens quest west past the Hunterhorn Mountains and into the unknown lands beyond. A quest to end the Calling for the Grey Wardens and slay the mightiest dragon in Thedas, all in a days work for the fabled Hero of Ferelden.


Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age by BioWare, I do however own the non-canon character(s) of this story. This is purely a work of my personal enjoyment so I ask you to not expect anything perfect. I fully welcome criticism/suggestions/questions. The story will eventually be finished (I hate leaving things unfinished) but I have no real schedule. Please review as I'd love constructive feedback/thoughts about the story.

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"Qwryn Vosh was the first of his name to rule the ancient Voshurtok Thaig but would go down in the records as a visionary, the savior of his people and dare I say, the greatest of his blood. The year was -395 Ancient and King Qwryn was the first to foresee the coming onslaught. It was subtle to all others. None but He suspected before it was too late, such was his wisdom; for while Orzammar bickered like children our great king was not blind to the threat of the deep.

It cannot be questioned that The Collapse was paramount to our survival and, ultimately, our great success.

We owe our future to the Blood of Vosh." ― Scribe Bodel, on King Qwryn the Wise

* * *

**Prologue: The Collapse**

They were coming. They'd always been coming, in the dark, digging; clawing their way out slowly and patient as stone. It whispered to him even now at the end of things. Now that everything was in place, the work of years, to silence the whispers once and for all under rock and stone. He would have his peaceful rest with the ancestors. His return to the stone. Would that his sons weren't too blind to see! How had he sired such fools? It was their mothers fault, he knew, she'd made them weak...

"Farther?" There was one of the fools now, always barking as if he were king.

Not yet. Not ever.

"Father!"

"WHAT?!"

The boy faltered, unsure. He looked at him as a stranger.

"Veldrik holds the door," the boy rambled. "but he cannot-"

"It doesn't matter boy."

The boy blinked, then formed a scowl.

"It doesn't-" He grew angry, the fool. "He's your SON!"

The old king laughed. Oh ancestors, if that wasn't the funniest thing he'd heard of late.

"The Prince who would be King?"

Qwryn Vosh smiled a toothy smile. Wide and true, beaming.

"Seize him."

The hall fell silent.

The world outside shook.

"Farther?"

The guards obeyed, seizing the young price by his arms.

"Release me!" The boy commanded, struggling against his fathers guards. "I am a Prince of Voshurtok, you have no-"

"Strike him," the old king spoke with a roll of his eyes. Uncaring.

The smack echoed against ancient stone as the Prince fell to the floor, his nose bloody and broken.

"Mad," he muttered to the stone. "He's mad..."

"What's that boy?!" Qwryn asked, standing up from his regal throne in anger.

"I-" The prince looked up at his father, a shade- unknown to him. This thing was no kin of his.

He said nothing. By the ancestors, how had it come to this?

"Good." King Qwryn scoffed. "Silent and on your knees, where you belong; before your King."

Madness. The Prince lowered his head, looking down at the blood pooling on the fine stone floor of his families palace.

"You where telling me something, boy?" The King asked his subject.

No kin of his. No king. All hope died on the Princes tongue.

"Prince Veldrik requests aid, your _Majesty..._"

_"Oh, does he?"_ Qwryn thought in silence to himself. His eldest, ever ambitious, had the gall to demand aid of him? The fool. So caught up fighting a hopeless fight against forces he was too simple to understand. He'd have words with the boy, once he returned to the stone...

"Well then," he asked with a heavy does of sarcasm. "what are you waiting for?"

"Farther?" The prince muttered despite himself, the word welcoming- tho the reality less so

"Go!" Qwryn commanded. "I send you, boy, to aid your brother!"

He'd only just been sent from the front. The guards holding him seemed confused.

The King seemed to notice, angered by this delay. "Release my fool son before I've your arms cut off!"

"I-" The young and startled prince got to his feet. "As you wish, _My King_..."

King Qwryn smiled. Perfect. Everything was going as he'd foreseen.

* * *

Outside the world seemed to be ending. The great dragon carved of finest gold that curled around the once mighty palace of Vosh kings had broken, its maw cracked and fallen onto some unsuspecting nobles; too slow to avoid the crash, crushed beneath the very golden dragon that graced Vosh shields.

He'd had violent visions as a child of that very dragon. It came to life, only to devour his family one by one.

They'd named him 'Durran the Dreamer' as a jest, until he stopped speaking of it- but the name stuck regardless.

_"And they called me the mad one," _the young Prince Durran thought to himself as he staggered down the steps and past the dragons maw. The walkways were empty, houses abandoned, the citizens of Voshurtok fleeing for their lives in some desperate attempt to survive the coming doom. Only the Sha-Urtok remained alongside their Crown Prince as he stood now at the breach; leading his men, to the death, to the end, for family and his people- would that their king was so strong...

"Brother!" Prince Durran called out to his eldest brother, no time for courtly pleasantries.

"Atrast vala, little dragon."

Prince Veldrik seemed happy to see him, despite everything; embracing his kin before noting the blood.

"Father?"

"He-"

"No," Veldrik scowled. "don't defend him. Not to me..."

The Crown Prince of Voshurtok was grim and scarred, a far cry from how cheerful and quick to laughter he'd been growing up; known as the Smiling Dragon- turned dark and grim by the horrors of battle. He looked sick, pale, with a glint in his stare now that reminded Durran of the very foe they faced in battle...

"That-" Prince Veldrik snarled like a dragon. "That thing, is no father of ours!"

"He is king..."

"King!?" His brother snapped, anger in his tired bloodshot eyes.

The great door of Voshurtok shook. They were coming.

Stone fell from the ceiling, collapsing onto a nearby nobles house.

The Smiling Dragon never seemed more dangerous.

"We have no king," he explained simply. "nor father. The man is dead."

The axes of the Sha-Urtok slammed onto the stone as one, showing support, grim and cold- all oaths to the King seeming forgotten in favor of the Prince who would be king. "How did it come to this?" Durran asked aloud, more a prayer than anything. As if the stone would give him an answer.

His brother answered him instead and, for a brief moment, something akin to fear flashed behind Veldrik's stony mask.

"I don't know..."

The great door cracked.

The Sha-Urtok locked shields.

Prince Veldrik turned to face the coming darkness, showing no emotion as he spoke.

"Lead our people, little brother..."

"I-" Durran was confused. "You-"

"I am already dead," Veldrik Vosh declared simply, his veins a sickly black against pale skin.

No. No. No. Durran couldn't, wouldn't lose another- so few of them left... how could he of all people...

The Crown Princes voice broke him from his panic, "Little Dragon," warm and comforting as only family could manage.

He looked up to the true King of Voshurtok and for a moment, Durran remembered what hope felt like.

"Atrast nal tunsha," _King_ Veldrik smiled at his brother; holding out his royal axe.

"I-" Durran took the ancient weapon of Vosh royalty with shaky hands. It was black and gold and seemed to hum when one of the blood held it; as if it agreed with the wielder. A weapon of Kings. One his father had given to Veldrik as a gift on the day of his first command...

His meaning was clear. His brother was not leaving, as his first and final act as King.

"Atrast nal tunsha," Durran uttered as he smiled back at his brother. The best dwarf he'd ever know.

The last anyone saw of King Veldrik the Brave - as the records would name him for his final hours - he was screaming defiantly into the darkness alongside his men facing the horrors of the blight. Durran only looked back when he heard the final deafening crack; as the great door opened and the tides consumed his home.

When he ordered the first tunnels collapsed, a roar echoed out to Durran's ears. He dared not look back.

* * *

The dust settled and the silence was deafening. Durran Vosh, the Dreamer, stood as a King without a Kingdom; leading thousands of his people through the dark tunnels and ordering the passages behind them collapsed to stop the monsters that pursued them relentlessly even now.

_"Brother,"_ Durran thought as he soldiered forward. _"what would you do? I don't know how to save us..."_

Few if any members of the Sha-Urtok remained, but those who survived stood by him now; guarding their last King. An order designed to guard the blood of his family now reduced to barely a hundred men- the trials of battle obvious on each of their faces. They were tired. Exhausted. They all were.

"My king?" One of the lords asked, as new to his position as Durran was to his

So many had come into title and honor that honestly, felt meaningless now in the dark.

"Yet they all look to you," A voice in Durran's head seemed to ring against his skull like a bell. "the last Dragon. Their last hope."

He couldn't fail them. He'd come so far...

"My king?" The lord asked again, seemingly confused and desperate for guidance.

"We go onward..."

Onward to where? The only place he knew.

"Ren-par?" The lord asked

It was close. A place once peaceful and beautiful.

"Prince-" The lord stopped himself. "_King_ Veldrik declared the caves lost..."

"As are we, my lord." King Durran declared with a frown. "As are we."

The lost seeking the lost. Durran recalled his brother telling him tales of Ren-par as a child, of a beautiful and great underground lake of water that had never seen the sun, but shun in the light of lyrium infused crystals and diamonds the size of a dwarf. A place the stone had blessed.

_"And the sight of the greatest battle and loss Voshurtok had ever know..."_

He hoped against hope that the horde had moved on; too busy now, tainting his home.

When they arrived covered in dust and blood, the sight that befell them was out of some nightmare. The once clear blue waters that glowed so beautifully- were black with blood. The tainted blight had seeped into every inch as countless rotting corpses flouted in the pools.

And the smell? More than one dwarf emptied his stomach as they walked through the carnage.

"Veldrik told me stories, but I never thought..."

The despair in the kings voice was palpable

"There's no hope..."

"So many dead..."

"Ancestors protect us..."

The voices of his people began to lose hope.

Across the lake a slight glow seeped through the cracks in the stone where some crystals had not yet fallen to the taint. A light in the darkness. Or less poetically, some tunnels fashioned by deepstalkers- doubtless fleeing from the horde or perhaps... come to feast on the fallen...

"Atrast nal tunsha..."

"My King?" Another lord asked, curious

"The tunnels," Durran pointed them out. "They'll lead us."

The looks of doubt were all too obvious. It was, after all, a plan of madness.

"But-"

"What the lad means," A braver lord spoke. "is that's madness. It could lead nowhere!"

The cavern shook. Dust and dirt shifted, falling upon the dwarves like a light rain.

"We stay here and die," King Durran declared. "or we find our way in the dark. Choose."

The lords bickered, briefly, as the shakes grew in frequency.

"It's madness!"

"It's too dark, we'd never find the way out!"

"There may not BE a way out!"

Enough was enough. Doom hunted them.

"CHOOSE!" King Durran roared, loud enough to wake the dead that surrounded them.

"Life," one of the Sha-Urtok declared. "for our King."

Durran clasped arms with the man, "for our People!"

He'd tell none of the lords of his orders to collapse the deepstalker tunnels behind them.

"Atrast nal tunsha," he muttered as they went into the small cramped tunnels.

They would find their way in the dark, or be lost forever in it.

* * *

Up and Up and Up further still, they near crawled through the tunnels now. They'd been graced with some large caverns and nests of the ancestor damned tezpadam's, but now the creatures had dug fast and frantically- paying the dwarves no mind, if they were here at all anymore...

Durran remembered the story told to him as a child of how a warrior named Gason won honor and glory for his house. He won a dozen Provings and defended his thaig against a legion of foes. But though he was bold, Gason was also selfish and unkind, with a temper like spitting magma. He would rant and rage, mock and malign, until eventually Gason's friends turned their backs on him, his house crumbled, and he was cast into the Deep Roads.

It was here in these tunnels where no light existed, that runes of lyrium came to life on his brothers royal axe.

_"Serving your people even in death,"_ Durran had thought at the time. The lyrium shun unusually bright, to light the path ahead.

The tunnels behind them had collapsed, although no longer on royal orders- as the tunnels grew less and less structured, more and more dwarves at the rear fell to the crumpling stone and dirt. All seemed lost. King Durran had lead them to their deaths. And what a inglorious death it would be...

Durran could think only that his brothers sacrifice had been for nothing...

"Ahead!" A voice called back from just ahead of him, filled with something he'd never thought to hear again.

The voice - many voices now - rang out with genuine hope

"Ahead!"

They cried out in glee

"Light!"

"We're saved!"

The lost souls of Voshurtok could breathe again.

It was no ordinary air. It was fresh, clean, sharp and overwhelming.

"Atrast nal tunsha, little brother." His brothers voice smiled at him as King Durran fell to his knees and looked up.

The sun blinded him. It blinded his people, who under any other circumstance would've cursed him for leading them here; as ascendants, but now sung his name as their savior. How they embraced him, no matter noble birth or lack of any such, it mattered not. The sun felt warm and safe.

"You did it," one of his lords spoke in awe. "my King."

King Durran the Dreamer got to his feet and spoke through his exhaustion.

"Collapse the tunnels," he ordered as he watched his people flood onto the surface.

The lord moved to obey, a hand up to shield his eyes from the blinding light.

King Durran I Vosh sighed, so very tired now. The runes on his brothers royal axe, carved in lyrium, shun brightly still.

They read "atrast nal tunsha" and the king spoke the words aloud.

"May you find your way in the dark."

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**Questions & Answers:** I'll try and answer any obvious questions that you, the reader, may have. Just to save time on what may be obvious questions assuming anyone reads this far in the first place. If anyone's not answered here or you'd like a more detailed explanation, leave a review and I'll get back to you.

**Q:** When is the story set exactly?  
**A: **The prologue introduces a faction that'll be important later, but as the summery will no doubt explain (when I write it) this is the story of The Warden's quest into the far West of Thedas on his quest to stop the Calling - or at least, my personal head canon for the story since I doubt BioWare is ever going to give us one.

**Q:** When will the other chapters start?  
**A: **Sometime after the events of Witch Hunt. I'll start Chapter 1 with a short flashback of the Warden with Morrigan and her giving him his lead on a possible cure for the taint then we'll jump ahead to him traveling. He'll pick up companions and get into adventures along the way; very Origins style vibes

**Q:** What origin will the Warden be in this story?  
**A:** Human Noble. That was my 'Main' tho I did 100% Origins

**Q:** What will his Romance be from Origins? If any? And why?!  
**A:** Morrigan. She's my kinda girl and I think the best romance in DA. Fight me.

**Q:** Your grammar is terrible / You've made a mistake  
**A:** Yeah. That's bound to happen, tho I have improved in writing over the years, this remains something I do as a hobby for the love of it and as a means to settle my mind when I'm troubled; that happens a lot lately. I'm sure you're smart enough to get past some errors, no? If not I cant help you.

**Q:** When will chapters be updated! You take TOO LONG to write ffs!  
**A:** I'll write as I please when I'm in the mood to write and have the time.

**Note:** A small thanks to Octavius for brainstorming the story concept/ideas with me  
I strongly suggest checking out Dragon Age: Total War on Moddb- we're working on that


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